There have been developed various methods for joining pieces of beryllium. These methods include: partially merging a welding film of silver, gold, nickel or copper onto a reinforcing unit of stainless steel which is then diffusion welded onto the beryllium (U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,179); diffusion bonding the beryllium pieces by coating at least one surface of at least one of the beryllium pieces with nickel, contacting the beryllium pieces, exposing the pieces to lower than ambient environmental pressure, and then under pressure heating the surfaces while decreasing the applied pressure (U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,667); and brazing or diffusion-welding beryllium pieces with one of a family of brazing alloys of aluminum with magnesium, or rare earth, or silicon, or tin, or copper, or palladium, or gallium, or silver, or bismuth or strontium (U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,822).
It is difficult to join very thin pieces of beryllium to each other because the heat of welding or brazing deteriorates the mechanical strength of the thin beryllium pieces. It is difficult to join pieces of beryllium thicker than about 0.1 inches to each other. Attempts to autogeneously weld beryllium in thicknesses common for industrial uses results in cracking of the beryllium.
It would be advantageous to be able to quickly and easily join beryllium pieces using a welding process so that strong, lightweight aircraft, space components or satellite parts could be fabricated from beryllium. There is still a need for ways of joining beryllium pieces directly to each other without regard for the thickness of the beryllium pieces.
It is an object of this invention to provide a method for joining pieces of beryllium.
It is another object of this invention to provide a method of fabricating parts from beryllium.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.